Walking in Woods. Assignment 4; Second Draft.

Walking in Woods

For assignment 4 I have continued with my theme of walking, this time walking in the Lincolnshire Limewoods that I encountered on my walk from Assignment 3.

The Lincolnshire Limewoods are relicts of the original primeval wilderness in this part of England.  After the last ice age the whole of the region was forested with small leaved lime and the Limewoods are one of the few remaining links to wilderness in Lincolnshire.  My formative years were spent roaming these woods, developing a connection with nature that was to last a lifetime. 

Walking allows me to slow down and fully experience and appreciate the landscape that I travel through; to be a ‘human being’, rather than a ‘human doing’.  It not only provides exercise and improves health; it nourishes the mind, providing spiritual refreshment through contact with nature, allowing for the study of the appearance of things.  When walking in woodland, it is easy to lose and find oneself again, to reflect, meditate and absorb the natural world around me.  When walking I enjoy seeking out and photographing the intricate detail of nature, the ordinary, the detail that it is easy to walk past without noticing; I like to uncover the hidden aspects of a place, to ‘make visible the invisible’.  It allows me to reconnect with the world.

This summer I have walked in woods in Lincolnshire, The Lake District, Scotland and the Cevennes and Vercors mountains of France.  Photographing nature’s intimate landscapes means that the images could be anywhere: in rural settings, our edgeland wildernesses, beach and saltmarsh, mountains and even industrial settings and gardens. 

I share my feelings about nature through photography, but it leaves me with many questions.  Why am I affected in the way I am?  Why are these things here?  Why and how are they as they are?  Is the world as it is because it was made by a creator god, or is the Earth and everything on it, and the rest of the universe, simply governed by the laws of physics?  If we stop noticing these things will we allow them to disappear?

Having reflected on this post and on the feedback from my peer hangout group, I feel that my images are still too literal and do not ask the questions that I ask myself. I have portrayed a nature that is perfect.  I need to go back and experiment with styles of photography that are more ambiguous and make the viewer ask the same questions of themselves. I need to look deeper into the landscape of the wood; at its darker, more uncomfortable side.  This is going to entail putting this assignment submission on hold for a period while I rethink it.